🍪 Payment Wars, $14M From Fans, and Crap Dungeon
Hello there, fellow censorship skeptics and accidental dungeon divers.
In today’s Game Cookies, we’ve got Valve tangled in payment processor politics, a dev studio raising millions directly from its fans, a Minecraft porting veteran expanding, Arkane union workers calling out Microsoft over Gaza, Sony fully exiting Russia, and one hilariously bad localization mishap that became an instant meme.
💳 Valve: PayPal Blocked in Some Regions Over NSFW Content Row
Valve corporation says one of PayPal ’s acquiring banks has stopped processing Steam transactions for several currencies, reportedly tied to adult content concerns — echoing last month’s itch.io “deindexing” of NSFW games. Only Euro, GBP, Yen, AUD, CAD, and USD are unaffected.
📢 “One of PayPal’s acquiring banks decided to stop processing any Steam transactions.” — Valve
🦊🍪 Kiki’s Take: Payment processors playing moral police again. Today it’s NSFW content, tomorrow it’s whatever else they decide is “brand risk.” They don’t just process payments — they decide what worlds you can even play in.
💰 Godforge Dev Raises $14M With Fan Investments
Fateless Games, the studio behind upcoming RPG Godforge, has now raised $14M — much of it from HH Gaming’s community. The first $6M came from angel investors in just 10 weeks, not crowdfunding, and the game is aiming for a Q1 2026 launch.
📢 “The community has already expressed great belief in the game.” — Simon “HellHades” Lockerby
🦊🍪 Kiki’s Take: Forget publishers — this is fans going “fine, we’ll fund it ourselves.” If Godforge delivers, big studios are gonna hate how much power this puts in content creators’ hands.
🏢 Minecraft Port Studio 4J Opens Edinburgh Office
4J Studios Ltd, known for console Minecraft ports and now developing Reforj, is opening a second office in Edinburgh to tap into Scotland’s growing dev talent pool.
📢 “This is as exhilarating a time as we can remember for the firm.” — Paddy Burns, CEO
🦊🍪 Kiki’s Take: Translation: “We’re here before Ubisoft Scotland steals all the good coders.” Smart play.
📢 Arkane Studios Union Calls on Microsoft to Cut Ties With Israeli Government
The STJV union at Arkane Studios released an open letter urging Microsoft to end all support for the Israeli military, citing the BDS campaign and internal employee petitions.
📢 “We don’t want to be part of this sinister project for Gaza.” — Arkane STJV
🦊🍪 Kiki’s Take: This is going to ruffle every feather at Microsoft HQ. Whether they act on it or bury it under “ongoing review,” the PR storm’s already here.
🐻 Sony Fully Exits Russia After 18 Years
Sony has dissolved its Russian subsidiary, ending PlayStation, film, and music operations. The exit began after the 2022 Ukraine invasion and now closes the final corporate ties.
📢 “Sony… joins other companies in supporting international sanctions.”
🦊🍪 Kiki’s Take: It’s the kind of exit that looks clean on paper but leaves an 18-year hole in your market share. Russia’s already prepping their own “not-PlayStation” to fill it.
😂 Steam Game Accidentally Called “Crap Dungeon” in Japan
Roguelike The Crazy Hyper-Dungeon Chronicles briefly showed up on Steam Japan as “Kuso Dungeon” — literally “Crap Dungeon” — due to a localization error. The devs fixed it but admit they’re “still laughing.”
📢 “I’m hoping it’s not actually crap.” — Giorgio Macratore, Fix-a-Bug
🦊🍪 Kiki’s Take: The fastest way to get me to play your indie game? Accidentally name it “Crap Dungeon” and own the joke. This is free marketing gold.
🚀 Hardspace: Shipbreaker Rights Return to Blackbird Interactive
Blackbird Interactive has reacquired full IP rights from Focus Entertainment and confirmed multiple new Hardspace projects are in the works.
📢 “It is rare to have an IP that resonates so deeply with millions of players.” — Rory McGuire, BBI
🦊🍪 Kiki’s Take: Welcome back, cutter. Now give us new ships, new hazards, and don’t turn it into a gacha grinder.
Stay alert to who’s really pulling the payment strings.
Keep watching the fan-funded revolution.
Remember — sometimes the best marketing is an unintentional translation fail.
